वेदों की प्राचीनता एवं काल-निर्णय / ओरायन (लोकमान्य बाल गंगाधर तिलक - खगोलीय वैदिक शोध)

THE VEDIC DAWNS. III
or its tarrying longer on the horizon than usual, that is referred
to in the legend, and we can better account for it on the Polar
theory, because the duration of dawn, though usually of 30 days,
might have varied at different places according to latitude and
climatic conditions, and Indra's bolt was thus needed to check
these freaks of the Dawn and make way for the rising sun. There
are other legends connected with the Dawn and the matutinal
deities on which the Polar theory throws quite a new light; but
these will be taken up in the chapter on Vedic myths, after the
whole direct evidence in support of the theory is examined.
But if the Vedic dawn is Polar in origin, the ancestors of
the Vedic bards must have witnessed it, not in the Post-Glacial,
but in the Pre-Glacial era; and it may be finally asked why a
reference to this early age is not found in the hymns before us ?
Fortuately the hymns do preserve a few indications of the time
when these long dawns appeared. Thus, in I, 113, 13, we are
told that the Goddess Dawn shone perpetually in former days (purâ)
and here the word purâ does not mean the foregone days of this
kalpa, but rather refers to a by-gone age, or purâ kalpa as in the
passage from the Taittirîya Saṁhita (I, 5, 7, 5), quoted and discussed
in the next chapter. The word prathamâ, in the Taittirîya Saṁhitâ,
IV, 3, 11, 1 and the Taittirîya Brâhmaṇa, II, 5, 6, 5, does not
again mean simply ‘first in order,’ but refers to ‘ancient times,’ as
when Indra’s ‘first’ or ‘oldest’ exploits are mentioned in I, 32, 1, or
when certain practices are said to be ‘first’ or ‘old’ in X, 90, 16.
It is probable that it was this import of the word prathamâ that
led Sâyaṇa to propose that the first dawn, mentioned in the Tait-
tirîya, Saṁhita IV, 3, 11, represented the dawn at the beginning
of the creation. The Vedic poets could not but have been conscious